


Interlude VIII

by AnnetheCatDetective



Series: Interludes [8]
Category: Murdoch Mysteries
Genre: Gays Going To Brunch, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23621941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Some dialogue from AIOS, but this time with all of Jack's musings.
Relationships: Glen Scott/Aldous Germaine, Jack Walker/Llewellyn Watts
Series: Interludes [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1679167
Comments: 19
Kudos: 32





	Interlude VIII

**Author's Note:**

> Look, apparently imdb had Glen's name spelled wrong when I checked there and so now I'm kind of committed to spelling it wrong and for that I apologize.

Jack doubts Aldous will mind his bringing Llewellyn along to lunch-- it may or may not save him a full repeat of their last lunch, which he feels a little mean about hoping for, but Aldous in love is… overblown, sheer drama. And the thing is, with Aldous, he can’t even complain, because it isn’t put on. He’s so genuine in his theatricality. Jack must know twenty men if he knows one, who want to behave as if they’re possessed by the spirit of Oscar Wilde, who try to be something, who dress and speak to fit some constructed persona, tailor their habits to fit some imagined ideal, but Aldous is one of those who come by it honestly. He couldn’t be otherwise.

Still, it had been just a little bit exhausting, to be the one man he trusted to pour his heart out to. 

Aldous has avoided love, for as long as Jack’s known him. He always says it’s that he’s chosen to be safe-- he’s seen the harm that can come to men like them, and he’d understood, as Owen never could, that there was no amount of money which would protect you if someone decided to wield the full force of the law against you. They’d come of age in the shadow of proof of that.

Well, he supposes Aldous had come of age a bit before, but not so long that it wouldn’t have been a sobering moment for a young man, who might have once thought himself untouchable. 

The point, really, is that Aldous had closed himself off to the idea of falling in love, of being made love to, and he always says it’s just not safe to-- not when he can’t hide the sort of man he is, and needs the unassailable security of being a known celibate-- but Jack has long suspected that’s not the kind of safe he’s most concerned with. He suspects it’s more about his heart, and the risk of opening up to someone, the risk of pursuing a man in earnest and giving him the pieces of yourself that the world has battered nearly to the point of breaking, knowing that the right man could help to heal them and the wrong man could shatter you. 

Jack has thrown himself onto the rocks of romantic folly often enough he supposes he can see Aldous’ point. Why wouldn’t he want to spare himself the pain? So he patterns himself after their elders, and offers sexless comfort and companionship to his peers as if they were young things he might take under his wing, as if he were not still a man in his prime, with all the same drives as any other. 

He supposes it’s fair to say Aldous is… not the most handsome of men. He’s always impeccably dressed and impeccably groomed, but he’s not a head-turner. Jack likes his face, but… he likes it because it’s familiar, he likes it because Aldous is a good friend, because he’s known him well enough long enough… but it’s not the sort of face that drives one wild. Aldous is the kind of man Jack thinks a man falls in love with slowly. But...it’s not easy, to put oneself out there. Jack knows what the social scene is like, how many prettier faces can be so easily had. How it feels to offer everything to a man and to have him not want you, the heartbreak of it. He’s never been able to ignore his own desires for companionship, physical and emotional, in order to spare himself the pain of it, but he can’t judge Aldous for wanting to be well shot of all the troubles that come with the search for love. Still… it would catch up to him eventually.

Love catches up with most people eventually.

He hadn’t been sure whether or not he was surprised, to find out it was Glen, for Aldous-- he still isn’t entirely sure whether or not he finds it surprising. But he’d picked up on the fact that it was Glen, based on the careful way Aldous had talked around it before, and he’d done his best to say the right things, but… well, Aldous had been so sure it was a hopeless suit, and it’s not as if Glen is ever a very open book. He knows Glen would say yes to _something_ , with Aldous, but if they don’t want the same things in the long run, then he doesn’t want to encourage them both into a mistake that will damage a friendship.

When he sees Aldous has brought Glen along to lunch, he does have the question in mind, of whether or not something has changed, whether congratulations are in order-- or best wishes? Of course, it means Aldous is understanding of his having brought Llewellyn along. 

“And… how has your other problem gone?” He asks, when there’s a lull in the conversation. Cuts his eyes briefly over towards Glen and sees the glow of understanding.

“Much the same.” Aldous grimaces, fussing nervously-- and giving Glen a brief glance of his own. “Entirely the same, in fact. As the last time we spoke.”

“Aldous--” 

“You know the position I’m in.” Aldous cuts him off with a look, serious and sad, the sort of look that hardly sits comfortable on a face made for beaming smiles as his. “And you know the position… And this is hardly the time, thank you very much.”

He understands, of course… Aldous has put Glen in a difficult position, were he to press his suit-- he’s offered him a roof over his head, the table he eats at, a comfortable place… and he would be conscious of giving so much as a hint of Glen’s place being contingent upon his affections. He would worry about making him uncomfortable. And… he doesn’t want to face rejection. And Jack can’t tell him that he knows Glen would gladly hop into his bed, at least to mutually scratch the occasional itch as friends, it’s not his place to, and Glen might have his own feelings to sort through now.

Still, maybe he could just encourage them to talk to each other. Since talking to Aldous the first time, he had found out about Glen.

“You could put the offer out there and you never know, but all right. Glen, how have you been?”

“Better.”

“Is the new position working out for you?” Llewellyn leans halfway across the table-- again, Jack can’t imagine how anyone could miss the depth of feeling in this man.

“It is. It’s… not as satisfying, but I’m learning to like it.” Glen nods. It sounds like an understatement to Jack-- whoever he’s doing private security for, it can’t be so satisfying as solving crimes for the city. He’s known Glen long before he made detective, he remembers how excited he’d been for that, compared to how he is now. “I’m still thinking very seriously about taking a room that puts me closer to work.”

Aldous’ face says everything before Glen even gets the word ‘room’ out, too-- dismay, heartache, both quickly plastered over with a little bit of a don’t-let’s-be-ridiculous air. The one time his affectations have actually been affectations and not merely his way.

“It doesn’t even have a private bath. I’m sure it’s very convenient and very comfortable up until you need anything outside your bedroom, but could you really live without a private bath?”

He’s the only man at the table who’s _never_ lived without a private bath. Jack would wager Glen never had one before moving into Aldous’ place, he never had one himself before lucking into the only suite in the building to feature a shower bath-- cramped though it may be-- and he doesn’t think Llewellyn’s had one in his life.

“I always used to. It’s not so bad. It’s just at the end of the hall and it’s not that many people…” Glen says.

“I feel myself take pale just to _think_ of it! Some support, gentlemen, please.” Aldous flaps a hand at them.

“My boarding house has shared baths.” Llewellyn says, though he refrains from any cutting class commentary. Considering it’s Aldous, Jack is glad for that, though… well, he knows a few men he wouldn’t mind see getting a lecture on the subject, who he has not lectured himself, due to the complicated web of social obligation to friends of friends-- some of whom it must be said are customers.

“I couldn’t give up having my own.” He says, just because absolutely no one else is going to come in on Aldous’ side here-- and because it is true. He used to live back at home with his mother and make the longer commute with the shop’s delivery bicycle cart, just because the first time he’d moved out and taken a bachelor’s room, he’d hated waiting in the hallway so long, having to let everyone who only needed to briefly make use of the facilities go ahead because he was going to be having a full bath, and feeling like the smell of blood was soaked into him. 

At work he doesn’t mind it. At home, it’s… he’d just rather be rid of it before he thinks about supper, and certainly before he tries to sleep. The dreams you get, when it’s the last thing you smell before falling asleep…

Besides which, the shower bath is more convenient than a tub had ever been, and now he sometimes has the pleasure of half-watching Llewellyn make use of it while he shaves in the morning-- depending on what kind of a rush they’re in, whether he needs to be cooking breakfast while Llewellyn cleans up. But he likes getting to watch him, the water coursing over his body, the way it highlights the lines of lithe muscle… the way Llewellyn relaxes, when he has the time to, the way he looks with a little lather clinging to or sliding down his skin. What it is to join him, and they don’t both fit, not really, but it just means they really have no choice but to wash each other once they’re both crammed in, and if the sight of him wet is a pleasure, the _feel_ of him is heaven.

“Quite so. The only time I want to _hear_ the words ‘shared bath’ is if I’m sharing one with a charming and lissome blond.” Aldous sniffs, as if they don’t know his habit-- as if he doesn’t have a _charming and lissome_ blond he could invite to share with him if he’d only work up the nerve to ask.

“Do you have one lined up? I won’t cramp you, if you’re trying to move one in.” Glen completely misses any potential hint. Not that Jack supposes you could call it much of a clue, but still, he can see the sting on Aldous’ face, which Glen doesn’t seem to see.

“Oh-- no. No, of course not.” He fidgets, doing his best to recover a lighthearted front. “No, I’d never be able to enjoy it, thinking of you waiting in some drafty hallway just to brush your teeth at night, like an animal. Besides, there really isn’t anyone… _lined up_ , for me.”

The front falters a little bit, at that reminder.

“Well, I’m working again-- all you have to do is say the word, the room on offer now is convenient and it’s cheap, I could be there by Monday.”

“Not with a _shared bath_ , Glen. Really.”

“Oh-- were you two…?” Llewellyn’s brow furrows slightly as he looks between them, catching up with the living situation and perhaps also the barely restrained aura of repressed longing coming off of Aldous every time he looks at Glen. And… well, whatever it is Glen is feeling.

He’s thought about it and that’s all Jack can really say. 

“A temporary situation. When I didn’t know if I’d get work again before rent came due at my old place.” Glen says, and if he’d been looking at Aldous instead of Llewellyn as he’d said it, he’d have caught the flash of hurt. 

Aldous must hide these things from him better, must only let them out when Glen isn’t looking his way. Or if he doesn’t hide them carefully, Jack gives Glen a week to figure it out, or it’s as well he’s not a detective anymore, because Aldous isn’t a difficult thing to detect.

At least once he does see it, he’ll likely offer some kind of arrangement. It might not be so romantic in nature as Aldous is looking for, and maybe he’ll turn it down when it comes, but it won’t be rejection. He won’t have to feel as if he’s not enough, not wanted, it’s only a question of whether or not he can handle being a friend whose bed Glen is happy to grace and not a lover. Jack’s made the mistake of telling himself the one could become the other when it couldn’t, not well, but he still thinks it’s better to be a friend than the pretty young thing one picks up at a party for a good time once and never thinks about or has a conversation with after.

Besides which, it’s not as if Glen hasn’t got a romantic bone in his body, he doesn’t think. He’s taken more serious lovers, in the time Jack’s known him-- they’ve just never worked out and so he goes back to seeing whose bed is empty when someone breaks a thing off and he’s left lonely.

“I have the spare room. I have the spare _bath_.” Aldous is saying, when Jack manages to shake his thoughts off and tune back into the conversation-- he can’t have missed much, at any rate. “Besides… it’s nice to have someone to play cards with of an evening. Or it would be, if I could ever manage to win a hand... Still, I haven’t given up on the possibility.”

“Speaking of room--” Jack seizes the opportunity to make his request, only to have to stop himself until their waiter has come and gone. “Speaking of room, how many people could you put up at yours, Aldous?”

“Oh, quite a few if things were… shuffled around, and people didn’t mind sharing. More, if I had to put people up on couches. A couple of Christmases ago I think I had to sleep ten people-- myself _not_ included-- when my party was snowed in. Mixed company, too. It makes things so much more complicated once ladies are involved, if it was all gentlemen I could have put two in every bed, two more on couches, and myself on the chaise in the office, and no trouble whatsoever. Why do you ask?”

The only part of any of this which surprises Jack is that Aldous had had mixed company-- but then he recalls at least one or two ladies Owen had mentioned, buying from or selling to, who Aldous would also know well enough.

“Just… wondering, about the book club, and if we all wanted to try and… make a weekend of it sometime.” His nerves abandon him entirely and those are the words that come out when they do, entirely unbidden. A weekend would not be unpleasant, but it’s a thin cover at best, it’s rather meaningless their all making a weekend of staying at Aldous’ place, not like if they all planned to go out of town as a group. Which they also might, but it’s not what he wants right now, it’s not the favor he needs. A glance over to Llewellyn steels his nerves to finish asking. Don’t they deserve this? Doesn’t he? “Actually-- No. Not that. I was wondering… You’re set back from your neighbors.”

That’s all it takes for Aldous to catch on, he lights right up.

“Walls a little thin at your place?” He asks, leaning in a little.

“A little.” He admits, glances over to Llewellyn again-- sees him in the process of taking a rather laborious spoonful of soup, realizes in short order that he’ll have a harder time getting through any of what he might have to say if he’s watching him. “And… it’s a boarding house. I’m not supposed to keep guests to begin with, we’re risking enough as it is. I was hoping to arrange a favor for a favor.”

“The attic bedroom has a bit more privacy, though in winter--” Aldous starts, his expression showing what he thinks of the attic bedroom’s insulation for winter, but Jack thinks he could keep Llewellyn warm enough-- he thinks Llewellyn has known colder rooms of a winter than Aldous’ attic bedroom might be, too. 

He suspects Llewellyn’s room may be on the drafty side, given he’s never suggested they spend the night at his to avoid raising any suspicion spending too many nights at Jack’s-- granted, there’s the bath, at Jack’s. But Llewellyn always seems to settle into everything at his place as if he’s not used to so much comfort.

“Privacy is all I really care about.” Jack admits-- rather more freely than he’d intended, but another darting glance over towards Llewellyn had proved… over-interesting. “And the use of a bathtub would be helpful. Name your price.”

“My price… Dinner, for the four of us, one game of cards-- on the off chance that I have better luck with twice as many people at the table-- and then I think Glen and I can stay downstairs with some music on to give you a bit of privacy _without_ banishing you to the attic.”

Well, he can do dinner. He’d half expected Aldous might have some more complicated favor, might say they would negotiate privately if that favor involved any help regarding his private life, or might just… well, might ask more of him than what he’d considered part of spending the night would entail. It’s not as if Aldous can cook, at all. He’s not sure Glen’s ever _had_ to, for that matter. 

Well… it will be nice, to have a crowd to cook for, and less time and pressure than cooking for eight for the book club, even if their meals are often light and informal. But a dinner for four, he knows he can put together something which looks impressive, without too much trouble. He’ll just need to time things out.

“Unless you expect to be very loud for very long.” Aldous adds, and Jack feels the blush overtake him.

“No. Thank you, Aldous. Not… no, not-- unreasonably so. The normal amount.” He says, though he supposes he’s not really certain, this will be something new and he would like to hear Llewellyn, what he’s like _unrestrained_. Whether the sounds he would make for this would be any different... “It’s just… nowhere is _safe_ for us, to… I couldn’t think of anywhere else to _go_.”

“I’m flattered you thought of me, then.” Aldous smiles warmly, as if there’s nothing to be embarrassed _about_ , as if he facilitates the sex lives of others regularly.

Perhaps he does, come to think of it. He certainly has the spare rooms to, and there are certainly enough men of their set who would have difficulty finding a safe place for it, but… it’s such an odd thing to imagine him doing. All the pains he takes to live his own life as a celibate, and all. If he knew anyone else he could ask, he’d feel awful asking Aldous, but…

“Well… you’ve got the most space. I’d probably die on the spot if I tried to ask Stephen, neither Reed nor Antony would let me live it down...”

“What makes you think I would?” He teases. But two can play at that game. The _foundation_ of their relationship as-- formerly-- the only two young men of their book club had been the ability of both of them to play at that game.

“Aldous, I know far too much for _you_ to tease me now.”

“Touche. Please leave my skeletons in their closets, and you may have free run of my house.”

“I might rattle one or two.” He slides a look over to Glen, just enough to get a sharp look across the table.

“Jack Walker, I do still know where a few bodies are buried myself, and I shall repeat certain things to certain persons if you start.” Aldous says, fully haughty as Jack has ever heard him. And yes, all right, he’d confided _certain things_ to him, when his relationship with Llewellyn had been in its first blushes, he’d said a lot of things which would have embarrassed him at the time if they’d gotten back to Llewellyn, but after everything the two of them have said and done now, he can’t imagine Aldous could really embarrass him.

“I don’t have any secrets.” He squeezes Llewellyn’s knee, just to let him know that he is, in fact, _certain persons_. That Jack doesn’t intend to keep things secret from him, he supposes. But it isn’t Llewellyn who jumps on the exchange.

“Wait. _You_ know who Gloria is.” Glen says.

Glen has heard about ‘Gloria’? When did that happen? And what could Aldous have possibly said without cluing him in?

“He doesn’t!” Aldous panics just a little-- and teasing him is an absolute must, but still, he has to know Jack would never really…

“I do.” He says, and keeps Aldous in just a little suspense. Just a little, and he knows it’s petty, but he can’t be the only one dying of embarrassment at this lunch.

“I’m lost.” Llewellyn admits, looking to him for guidance. Sweet thing, all wide eyes and knitted brow… There’s something about being turned to, relied upon, by a man he knows to be as sharp as Llewellyn is.

Glen and Aldous explain the whole thing rather seamlessly, leaning in and finishing each other’s sentences. Perhaps they would work together… And it makes sense someone other than Aldous had clued Glen in-- though it’s over the top even for Reed, to try to hire him to play detective. Then again, not as though Reed knows Glen _is_ the object of Aldous’ affections. He doesn’t imagine he’d have teased like that if he had. 

“Do I know ‘Gloria’?” Glen presses, when they’ve come to the end of the whole thing.

“I’m afraid I cannot answer that question... at this time.” He says, though he feels a bit bad letting Aldous twist so long, at the look on his face. 

“Jack, please.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to say anything.” He promises. He definitely owes him a very good dinner… and maybe throwing a hand or two when they play cards. “And I do appreciate your being a help, I really wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere else, with this.”

Another sidelong glance to Llewellyn, another unfortunate moment of realizing just how much he would enjoy feeding him soup, which even he has to admit sounds like a very un-sexual activity on the face of it. Feeding a man soup is what you do when he’s an invalid in need of care. Dessert had been one thing, he thinks, dessert can be a bit… it can be a bit like that. The pastry cream from the cake, the melting ice cream, those things had been sensual and-- well, visually, also, just… rather different from soup.

All right, and he can’t exactly excuse the sausage as being obviously… It had been sliced, which removes some of the clear visual… thing. But that had been more about the feeling of Llewellyn’s lips against his fingertips, and once, a brief, darting touch of his tongue, and then the… the sucking, all right, but that made sense in a way the soup doesn’t, there’s nothing romantically alluring about soup.

Except maybe the way he slides the entire bowl of the spoon into his mouth instead of merely tilting it to his lips, the way he sucks it clean and lingers on it between bites. 

And the fact that taking care of him does something for Jack whether or not it’s _alluring_ , that he would… he would find some emotional satisfaction in it even if Llewellyn _was_ sick and there was nothing sexual about it.

“Not at _all_ , old thing, happy to do it.” Aldous once more breaks him out of his thoughts, his spirits entirely recovered from any trepidation he might have felt over the possibility of Jack revealing his secret. “Happy to have more company. Really I am. Any time you need a quiet room in a house with no too-near neighbors, the price is dinner and a conversation.”

“It really is just a one-time favor. I mean-- we’re… _capable_ of being quiet at my place.” He blushes-- pauses again as the waiter returns with the main course-- Llewellyn allows his soup to be taken, despite how little headway he’s made, with merely an aggrieved look. 

It occurs to Jack that this might happen to him often, that the additional care soup takes for him means he’s never had enough time to get through it, that it might be… _frustrating_. He’s almost sorry it isn’t-- cannot be-- his place to step in and tell the waiter no, actually, he isn’t done. But then, even if it was, the last thing any of them want is for the man to come back to the table any more often than strictly necessary, given their conversation. Even careful as it is. 

Once they’re alone again, he picks back up on what he’d been saying, and he can’t quite find the words he wants, but… he thinks at this table, they’ll all understand. “It’s just… once, to not… to not.” He shrugs, and relaxes a little at Aldous’ understanding nod.

“I know.” He says, with the avuncular warmth cribbed from Abram and Reed at their kindest. From any other man of not much more than his own age, that kind of tone might rankle, but from Aldous… well, Jack knows why he is as he is. “And, as I’ve said, really-- any time.”

Mercifully, the gossip continues on to everyone else they know-- mostly, to ascertaining that everyone else who had been at Owen’s final party has now been tracked down and that they’re all well. It had taken long enough to be sure of all of them, so much of the circle fell apart with his death, but Glen’s taken the time since to try and track everyone down, when he hasn’t been putting his own life together, and a few people had come to Aldous to check in. 

Jack supposes Owen’s spectre will haunt them all for some time… he’d been a pillar of the community. For all that the parties were risky, so was the traveling social club. Jack knows enough about how the raids have gone for them. And not everyone could be content with something safe and quiet. Someday, someone else will fill the gap, but when he does, he’ll be compared to Owen for a long time to come, and while Owen’s name might be tarnished among his collector friends, he’ll be lionized among those who enjoyed the relative safety-- and the freedom and decadence-- of his house. Whatever story has made it around won’t hold much of the truth, he’ll be remembered as a sort of martyr. 

Rather complicated thing, to find oneself the former lover of a martyr. Every party will be compared to one of Owen’s, when they start back up again. Everyone at his non-philately club will talk only of the good times, only of his best points. Those who’d been in his bed as close friends will think about the ways in which he was generous-- and the ways in which he was talented-- and everyone will forgive him the way he had courted danger, and the way he had laughed off hurt feelings sometimes when he ought to have apologized. And no one will know what living with him was like, really.

Jack doesn’t think he’s a big enough man to go and visit Seburn. He might understand that loving Owen could be complicated, maybe… but he’d been a part of the scheme that got him killed, and he’d been… Jack’s in a better place than he used to be, but even so. He can’t imagine being face to face with that man not putting him into a worse one than he is.

“I did have a question, about _Gloria_.” Llewellyn provides a welcome change. “Not about-- Just… is that… do we all… do that?”

“Oh, the names, do you mean?” Aldous nods. “Well, not all, I suppose, but… it makes it easy, to talk. In places like this, over drinks, with people who… you need a different name in front of.”

“At work, they think I’m seeing a woman named Ella Smythe.” He admits-- and Jack can’t help the smile that overtakes him at that, knowing Llewellyn has… has wanted, or needed, to be able to talk about him in some little way, to the people around him. That not knowing whether or not it was a done thing, he’d done it, just because he’d needed to be a man in love.

“Ella Smythe! How creative.” Aldous claps his hands together, and shoots Jack a look, which says very clearly that he intends to get his own back after being left to worry earlier. “ _Jack_ , some weeks ago-- oh, now, you did say you had no secrets!-- had to extol to me the virtues of a ‘Lulu’.”

“I never claimed to be good at names--” Jack holds his hands up.

“Virtues?” Llewellyn turns to him with an undisguised wonder. As if he… as if it’s so strange Jack would, as if he couldn’t know all the things Jack sees in him.

“I hope I haven’t made a secret of them to you.”

“No-- I just… didn’t imagine you… bragged to other people.” He ducks his head, bites his lip-- though it doesn’t stop his smile any, bashful and boyish.

Llewellyn so often has the air of a boy desperately playing at manhood to the world, which grabs at Jack’s sympathy. It’s the air of a man who didn’t get to grow up with sweethearts’ hands to hold and stolen first kisses, and all the things most people get, who’s always had to pretend at a lifetime of experience that other men take for granted. Even Jack was lucky enough to have those experiences, only a little late compared to ordinary boys. Every time Llewellyn is granted one of those late experiences, it seems to rocket him back to something innocent and clumsy and sweet.

Jack had been lucky enough to get a childhood first love-- only a little after proper childhood was behind him-- but sometimes when Llewellyn looks at him, when he says something, when he takes it upon himself to be the one to steal a kiss, Jack finds himself back in that place, too, of feeling as if nothing else like this has ever happened to him, feeling as if he couldn’t have dreamt it.

He hadn’t, really, not all of him-- he hadn’t dreamt that Llewellyn could be so _earnest_. It’s not that he ever considered him _calculating_ , but plenty of men, they aren’t dishonest about it just because they’re charming, they know what to say and there’s nothing wrong with that. It had been easy to see Llewellyn that way, given how he seemed to know just what to say at every turn, to make Jack feel a little weak in the knees. To discover that he simply said what he felt and what he thought, that he didn’t _know_ it was right, Jack is still wrapping his head around the notion. He hadn’t thought he could be any more charmed, and yet…

“Well, I do.” He says. “Now and then.”

“Now and then. If someone talked about me _once_ the way I’ve heard you talk about ‘Lulu’, I’d be a happy man.” Glen rolls his eyes, and he’s not swayed a moment by Aldous’ insistent flattery-- nor does he take it seriously, it seems. “The young things at parties might _fawn_. It’s different. No young thing at a party has ever _sighed_ after whether or not I was a good detective.”

Oh. Oh no. 

When he’d told Aldous he had no secrets, he hadn’t considered what _Glen_ knows.

“You’re going to have to bring me in for the murder of Glen Scott in a minute.” He groans, hiding his face from Llewellyn’s enthusiastic surprise-- sweet as it is he should be surprised, heartbreaking that he should be surprised, and Jack would gladly tell him every day that he thinks the world of his detective skills as much as he does his sweeter and more private qualities, but there are things he doesn’t know how to bear bringing to light.

Not many of them, but… well, the one thing.

“When was this?” Llewellyn asks, which is exactly the question Jack had hoped to avoid. He would not like to think of himself as a man who would lie to the man he loves, but any man in his position could be forgiven a slight untruth, couldn’t he?

“Probably over lunch, the when’s not impor--”

Glen cuts him off. “In _jail_.”

He doesn’t have to look so damn smug about it.

“You _ass_.” Jack hisses.

“ _Oh, but Glen, he’s_ different _from the others_ , _don’t you think_ ?” He continues, in an unflattering mockery-- or it would be unflattering, if it were at all accurate. He makes him sound so _simpering_ , which he had not been.

“That is not what I said and that is not how I sounded.”

“ _Glen, you terrible cynic, if you had seen him when I did_ \--”

“I don’t remember any of this. You’re a liar and a cad.” Jack folds his arms, but out of the corner of his eye, he catches the look on Llewellyn’s face, and…

And perhaps it was silly to ever think he would judge him for being too quick to form an interest. He wasn’t _simpering_ , then. It wasn’t yet love-- and he definitely remembers it differently from Glen, who seems certain he’d fawned over Llewellyn even before his temporary release. 

He _hadn’t_. He’d only said, when he’d first been put in his cell… he’d… Glen had asked him if he was trying to be cutting, with ‘that ass of a detective just now’, or if he’d been trying to flirt with him, and suggested he needed to brush up on his skills either way-- though he’d apologized for being snappish under stress himself, and Jack had told him he was being unfair, that Detective Watts was most certainly _not_ an ass, he was the only man who’d treated him fairly, who had been… kind, in the interview room. 

He’d said he thought perhaps Llewellyn was one of them, but he hadn’t mentioned the way it felt different, to be watched by him, so unlike the suspicion of the others. The captivating dark eyes, the sympathy and curiosity in them… he hadn’t spoken to any of that then. He certainly hadn’t said anything about noticing his hands, not to Glen. And even when he had come back from his temporary freedom, he hadn’t…

Even to himself, he hadn’t yet been ready to think about Llewellyn as a _man_ , complete and entire. He’d thought of him in pieces, attractive pieces-- the eyes, the hands, the mind, the heart, before he had been able to admit to himself that there was an entire body connecting all those parts, that he wanted that body in its entirety, too. Not right away. Wanting to be close to in a passing moment is not quite the same as wanting to go to bed with.

And yet… and yet he had noticed a lot of things then, that he wasn’t ready to think about, let alone tell _Glen_ he was thinking about, he had noticed the warmth and the yearning behind the ever-shifting and measuring glances, he had noticed the way Llewellyn moved or held his hands, he had noticed his posture, his wariness, his warmth. 

He had noticed, the very first time, when Llewellyn had been a largely-quiet presence wandering from the inspector’s side, how well he’d dressed, too flashy for a detective, and cut too flatteringly to his body, the color and the bold pattern and the well-chosen tie… and he’d noticed that for how well he dressed, he was less concerned with being well-kempt. He dressed a bit dandy, but he had the heavy stubble of a working man, down to earth and rough around the edges, and there had been the one curl that came down at the side of his brow, just visible beneath the brim of his hat, which had… 

Well, he’d noticed it.

There had been even more of those stray curls in evidence, when he’d appeared on Jack’s doorstep, in a suit almost as nice as the one from the day before. But by then, Jack had already seen him without his hat, already knew how thick and fluffy his hair, could already imagine how nice it might be to run hs fingers through. 

Now, Llewellyn’s hand lingers just a moment at Jack’s back, when he rises, barely there and yet radiating warmth. It’s… it’s what they get. He can’t leave him with a kiss. But… it’s nice.

“I’d better get back to work, gentlemen. If you could make sure my bill’s paid? And I’ll see you… well. I’ll see you.”

He leaves his money with Jack-- not that Jack wouldn’t have seen his bill paid regardless, he’d have gladly paid for him. 

“Of course. Any time. I’ll hold onto your change for you.” He promises-- there will be some change. More than a little.

“You may as well put it towards this upcoming dinner.” Llewellyn says, and there’s something even in the gentle way he smiles and the softly-worded suggestion which feels… inarguable. And if he wants to help in his way, well… mightn’t they have split the bill, if a hotel had been possible?

Jack agrees.

The goodbyes are lingering, and then Jack is twisted around in his chair to watch Llewellyn go, and he knows Glen and Aldous are trying not to laugh at him, but he no longer cares.

“My, but someone’s got a hold on you.” Aldous teases, when Jack does turn back around.

“It’s not unmerited.” He returns to what remains of his lunch.

“What’s your Lulu _like_ , to earn such devotion?” Glen teases.

“I know exactly what you mean by that, and I’m certainly not telling you.”

“Well, you must have done _something_ by now. Your walls aren’t so thin you haven’t done _anything_.”

“My _devotion_ has nothing to do with what we have or haven’t done in bed. Some of us are looking for a little more than… sexual combustibility.”

“And as well you should!” Aldous nods. “Mere physical enjoyment, without _real love_ , is meaningless and empty.”

“You just say that because you’re not getting any of it.” Glen shrugs. “‘Physical enjoyment’ with _me_ is far from empty, by the way.”

Aldous goes pink from his collar to his hairline. “Oh I’m sure you have the most objective assessment, do you?”

“I’m very giving, ask anyone.”

“Anyone.” Aldous huffs. “Anyhow, you know I don’t. I mean-- I _don’t_.”

Glen’s expression sobers, and he offers Aldous an apologetic glance, a pat to his arm. “Right-- sorry. I mean, you _could_ , you know. You don’t have to give it up. Not if it would make you happy.”

“Best to, though. You… you know how it is. For me. Being as I am.” He gestures. “All the ways I am.”

“For _real love_ would you?”

Aldous looks at him a moment, stricken, before turning away, regaining his composure.

“I don’t think it very likely.” He says.

“You’re just going to pine from afar for this Gloria, like… like…” Glen snaps his fingers.

“Courtly love?” Jack offers.

“That! You just plan on sitting around, never saying anything, and letting this _creature of exemplary beauty and nobility_ pass you by?”

“It’s not up to me, is it? It’s up to Gloria. Who might have any man in the world.” Aldous rather politely does not add ‘and has done’-- perhaps he doesn’t think it. “And look at me… I’m not even in the running.”

“Do you think very highly of this person?” Glen sighs.

“Of course I do.”

“For _exemplary beauty_ alone, or for all those inner qualities?”

“For all of them. I would hardly have been able to recount them if I didn’t.”

“Well you don’t give _Gloria_ very much credit. Though whatever it is I’m supposed to be looking past, I really have no idea.”

Aldous swallows and fusses with his cutlery. “Well that’s very kind of you to say, but I have my reasons for preferring _courtly love_. Anyway, I suppose I ought to ask for the check--”

“I’ll get you. No arguments, I’ve got a paying job and _you_ won’t take any rent.”

Aldous, predictably, gets flustered and lets Glen do exactly as he pleases, and Jack pays for Llewellyn and himself and excuses himself before either of them can remember they were interrogating him about his love life. 

A week. Glen’s got to figure it out in a week.


End file.
